QUEK JIA QI
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Is this seat taken?

Is this seat taken? (2018)

 Public performance outside Whitney Museum, New York City, USA
We crave connection, but fear rejection. In a fast-paced city where a majority of social interactions take place via technology, the challenge today is how we can better coexist offline. Exploring the potential of public spaces to strengthen connections, the performance seeks to parse out the significance of individual within a community and break down the barrier that inhibits social interaction in everyday life: that of physical distance. The anticipated dis(comfort) that arises from an unfamiliar territory aims to reveal how our social dynamics operate in the public sphere - spurring on participants’ reflections of the complexities and contradictions that accompany notions of desire and intimacy.

The public performance involves the artist providing a service to connect strangers by rearranging the Whitney Chairs outside the Whitney Museum. The gesture invited strangers to sit together, move, break free from their personal headspace and start sharing a conversation with one another. 
The artist became an active figure of giving prompts and actively sorting different seating arrangements to encourage open human communication. 

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  • ABOUT
    • Biography
  • ARCHIVE
    • Recent
    • Performances & Public Interventions >
      • Can You Hear Me?
      • A Picnic In Apart
      • Field Trip to Redhill
      • Kopi & Myths
      • The Treehouse We Never Had
      • Bind
      • What do you not handle with care?
      • Ghost to Ourselves
      • Love Clinic
      • All The Things I Had To Say To You (Without You)
      • Untitled (Goodnight Stranger)
      • Is this seat taken?
      • Untitled (Grieving in New York City)
      • Shifting Concretes: Can We “Lepak” Better at Orchard Road?
      • Waiting For
      • 洗手 (Washing Hands)
      • This Is a Safe Place to Un-Nail Your Privilege
      • iStopped To Take This Photo (Oxford Street)
      • Fix-Aided
    • Interactive Installations >
      • Can You Hear Me?
      • Stretch
      • Untitled (lost and maybe not always found)
      • Real-Doh: Fun with Apologies
      • Real-Doh Playroom
      • Real-Doh: Model Citizen
      • Real-Doh: Together, We Can Even This Out
      • 佳佳 Mama Shop
      • Fix-Aided
      • Tabula Rasa
      • Untitled
    • Cardboard >
      • 佳佳 Mama Shop
      • Untitled ($2)
      • Untitled (Possessions)
    • Collaborations >
      • Oceans*A*Part
      • Dumplings & Dialogue
      • Conversations in Singapore History' 18
      • And Everything In Between
      • The Little Things Book
      • Shifting Concretes: Can We “Lepak” Better at Orchard Road?
    • Paintings >
      • Watercolour
      • One-Way Ticket
      • Bare Skin
      • Old Flame
      • Mummy Can I Wash Your Hands
    • Illustrations >
      • The Little Things Book
    • Your Familiar Stranger
  • Press
  • Contact